According to the fine folks on the facebook they are just everywhere running all over the state.....

Are you referring to the post on the Alabama WMA - Public Land Hunting Club page? That was a dandy.

Yeah but there were more

I got out of that group last year after arguing for days with those folks. They are convinced and know what they saw. It was fun for a week or so but finally I could fight no more.

Hundreds of thousands of game cams in the woods, and still not a single picture . Must be like Bigfoot.

They get hit by cars all the time across the country yet we cant run one over or shoot one or find remains of one or poop from one or a track from one or hair on a fence from one or a picture of one.

Yep, Alabama got them shape-shifter panthers.

They're sneaky here. Much more sneaky. I know dozens of people in Alabama that have "seen" one. It's amazing, really.

Surprised there aren't a few in the state with the high deer population. My mom and I walked up on one (25 yards) in the early 80's and I'm 90% sure I saw one about 10 years ago while I was bowhunting in the evening. That was a long walk back to the truck that night.

When somebody gets a trail pic of one it is amazing how fast it makes it around the county. You guys would know if there were some around.

https://www.cougarnet.org/confirmations

I’ve seen 4 in my lifetime. 1 in Tn, 2 in AL and 1 in Fl.

The one in FL was dead on the side of the road.

Same here. And I swear I got added back twice!!! Some of that stuff on there is SO low functioning I can't believe it.

Yes to both of these.

I don't want to hunt with anyone holding a high powered rifle in their hands who claims to have seen a panther/mountain lion/cougar in Alabama.

I met a couple guys up in the pine ridge part of Nebraska NF. Guys were from mobile.county (I think) and are probably on this site. they were super nice to give me a ride after I chased a bird a long way from my truck ( and the only other hunters I saw in 3 days). Anyway, one of the guys had seen a cougar like 2 or 3 times in a couple days and he was ready to get the heck out of there. He was pretty funny joking about it, but serious about not enjoying the encounters.

I remember he said something like to hell with these turkeys. That is as close to an Alabama mountain lion story as I have.

I love that the website has a "confirmation" of cougar sightings and lists photo as the proof but doesn't actually show the photo

We'll just take their word for it I guess

I will edit to say that some of these actually have photos verifiable by a Google search, but still how hard could it be to actually link to the confirming photo or news article?

I don't know that much about the site other than it came out of the wildlife department at SIU Carbondale and I've been to a couple seminars they spoke at. I don't think they are trying to show people the evidence but rather they are acting as the experts identifying which sightings are credible. Evidence of where cougars are is only as good as the reports. Many don't want to report (I know several) for lack of trust in agencies while others report every black lab as a puma. The "network" tries to be a credible source to both identify sightings and gather state agency confirmations.

What I found surprising is a hunter in GA killed a lion on Army Corp land a few years back and apparently it was legal to do so. I figured since they are considered a protected or endangered species that would be illegal.

FIFY

If you think seeing a mtn lion will give you chills just wait till you see bigfoot. That will make your hair stand up